Ag Weather Forum

The following summary of January weather in Iowa gives a good rundown of the kind of dryness we saw to begin the year 2015 in the Western Corn Belt.--Bryce

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The relatively dry weather pattern that has prevailed in Iowa since mid-October persisted until January 31st when Iowa’s heaviest snow storm in five years arrived. This late month storm began with rain on the morning of the 31st with the rain gradually changing to snow during the afternoon and evening hours. Snow fell statewide before ending during the afternoon and evening of February 1st. Storm totals varied from 2.2 inches near Spirit Lake to 16.0 inches at Le Claire. Greatest amounts fell along and just north of the Interstate 80 corridor from Des Moines to the Quad Cities. A statewide average of 8.3 inches of snow fell across Iowa, the highest storm total since December 23-27, 2009. However, the vast majority of Iowa’s weather stations make their once-daily observations at 7 a.m., prior to the arrival of the storm on the 31st. Thus, most of the precipitation and snowfall from this storm will go into the record books for February.

The month’s greatest precipitation total was 1.53 inches at Burlington with Lowden reporting the most snow with 15.1 inches (both of these locations measure at midnight). However, for the month ending at 7 a.m. January 31, only 0.02 inches of precipitation fell at Hastings and Sidney while New Market recorded only 0.4 inches of snow for the same period. The largest precipitation event occurring entirely within January came on the 5th with widespread snowfall of four to six inches from northwest to east central Iowa. High winds combined with dry powdery snow to result in blizzard warnings being issued for parts of northern Iowa on the night of the 3rd and again on the 8th.

The statewide average snowfall for the month was 6.3 inches. This is 1.4 inches below normal and ranks as the 53rd lowest January total among 128 years of record.

(ES)